ostendis mundo te? Quem oportuit ad primum quemque meum nutum elucescere, solito etiam clarius et magis splendide?

SOL. Non video quid peccarim.

CAIETANUS. Non vides? qui decem nunc totos dies ne unum quidem radium ostendisti mihi, ita obducens de industria omnes tibi nubes, ac si invideas mundo lucem.

SOL. At astrologorum est ea culpa, siqua est, nam hi calculando invenerunt tale hoc fore tempus.

CAIETANUS. At magis oportuit videre te quid vellet pontificis Legatus, quam astrologis quid conveniat. Scin' Italia exiens quae interminatus sum tibi, ni vehementi ardore intempestive frigescentem Germaniam recalfaceres ac aestiviorem mihi redderes, ne Italiae necessario teneret me desiderium? SOL. Neque hoc animadverti quid praeciperes mihi, neque unquam scivi quemquam mortalem soli imperare.

CAIETANUS. Non scivisti tu? atque hoc ignoras episcopum Romanum (qui nunc omnem suam in me vim transfudit legatum a latere) et caelo quae velit et terra ligare potenter ac solvere?

SOL. Audieram, sed non credebam esse quod ille iactitaret, neque enim adhuc quemquam mortalium quicquam hic immutare vidi.

CAIETANUS. Etiam non credis, male Christiane, tu? quem oportet, talis cum sis, excommunicatum statim Satanae tradi. SOL. Satanae tu trades me caelo deiectum ? et solem, quod aiunt, e mundo auferes ?

CAIETANUS. Equidem faciam, nisi veniam petes a me confessione statim facta uni ex copiistis meis.

SOL. At ubi confessus ero, quid tum fiam?

CAIETANUS. Poenam tibi infligam dies aliquot iubens aut ieiunio macerare te, aut laborem quempiam ferre, aut peregrinationibus fatigari, aut eleemosynam expendere, aut verberari etiam pro delictis.

SOL. Dura conditio: post vero quid dabis?

CAIETANUS. Innocentem dicam tandem, et purum reddam. SOL. At soli lumen inferes tu scilicet?

CAIETANUS. Si videbitur, etiam hoc vigore facultatum quas mihi concedit X. Leo.

SOL. Nugae! sic arbitraris fatuum quemquam mortalium etiam istorum ut haec te posse credat, nedum solem omnia desuper intuentem? proinde elleborum bibe, insanire mihi enim videris.

CAIETANUS. Insanire? de facto excommunicatus es, irreverenter loquutus pontificis legato: itaque magnis et inexpiabilibus alligasti te execrationibus, quem ego excommunicatum paulo post pronuntiabo solenniter, aliqua advocata concione, in publico, quod sic commotum me reddideris.

PHAETHON. Oppedendum contra has, pater, minas duco; quid enim posset in divos mortalis homuntio ?

SOL. Immo contemnere oportet eum, etsi misericordia dignus videtur, ut ex morbo qui insaniat.

PHAETHON. Quo ex morbo?

SOL. Avaritia laborat: quia itaque arridere sibi in Germania negotium, ut se expleat, non videtur, in furias agitur et insania percitus est.

No. 34. Hutten to the Elector Frederick.

... Videmus non esse aurum in Germania, nec argentum paene; siquod reliquum vero est, ipsum avarissime ad se trahit novis cottidie inventis artibus ille sanctissimus Romanistarum senatus ; ubi quid eripuerit vero, tum in pessimos confert usus. Vultis enim scire, Germani, quae vidi ipse, quid faciat Romae nostra pecunia? Nonnihil facit: partem in nepotes suos et cognatos profundit Decimus (habet autem ita multos ille tales, ut proverbio locum dederint 'Leonis Romae cognati et affines'), partem absumunt tot reverendissimi, quos triginta unum pater ille uno atque eodem creavit die tot referendarii, tot auditores, prothonotarii, abbreviatores, scriptores apostolici, camerarii, officiales et id genus alii principis ecclesiae primates. Nam hi post se trahunt maxima adhuc cum impensa copiistas, pedellos, cursores, scopatores, muliones, stabularios, et scortorum utriusque sexus innumerabilem turbam ac lenonum exercitum. Alunt et canes, equos ac simias et cercopithecas et huiusmodi multa animi causa; domos vero exstruunt solido quidam e marmore, et gemmas habent, coenantque laute ac splendide vestiuntur, et genio indulgentes secure deliciantur : in summa nostrae pecuniae praesidio magna ociatur Romae pessimorum hominum multitudo. Nulla ibi religionis cura, magnus est contemptus, qualem vix apud Turcas esse arbitror. Fraudant, imponunt, furantur, mentiuntur, falsum obsignant, spe lucri omnia dicunt ac faciunt: propositum vero habent hi omnes pecuniis nostris insidiari; alii vivunt ut edant atque bibant et sumptuosissime delicientur: nostrisque sumptibus

Sed Haec

assequuntur hoc. Has ob res, immensam, O Friderice, auri vim Romam quotannis hinc mittimus, nec adhuc intelligimus perdi quod sic elargimur: imo non perdi rem tantum, sed materiam fieri adhuc magnorum infinite laborum. Itaque si philosophari libet ob idque pecuniam abiicere decretum est, patent tot in propinquo maria, sunt fluvii, ille apud nos Moganus, ultra Rhenus, tuus istic Albis, atque alii; demittamus eo ut perdatur ipsa potius quam perditionis causa sit ubique multis, dum istam pascimus turpitudinem Romae superflue adeo ut huc nonnihil inde redundet, dum hanc alimus publicam morum pestem, hanc ipsi fovemus vitae contagionem. non abiiciemus: tantum transferri alio non sinamus. prima et optima est destruendae illius tyrannidis via, hic modus certe enim subducto hoc luxuriae fomento minus se efferent, tractabiliores passim erunt. Postea duce aliquo Othone illum censebimus senatum, urbem Romam lustrabimus, et eiectis malis compluribus paucos quosdam sua illic sacra curare iubebimus, regnare non permittemus. Ipsi imperatori, siquidem esse volet, imperii sedem reddemus: Romanum pontificem, ut aequalitas episcoporum sit, in ordinem redigemus. Sacerdotum etiam hic censum minuemus, ipsos ad frugalitatem perducemus et pauciores faciemus, centesimo quoque delecto. De iis vero qui fratres vocantur quid statuemus? Quid enim aliud quam quod ego censeo, abolendum omne monachorum genus His tot Germaniam atterentibus magisque ac magis omnia devorantibus ablatis, simul ea qua in nos feruntur Romanistae diripiendi licentia adempta, multum hic auri, multum erit argenti. Verum id, quantumcunque nobis aut qualecunque relinquetur, in meliores verti usus poterit, nempe ut alantur magni exercitus et imperii propagentur fines, etiam Turcae, si videbitur, debellentur; ut multi qui propter penuriam furantur nunc et rapiunt, stipendiis tunc vivant; ut qui aliter egent, publicitus quo inopiam tolerent accipiant, utque doctissimi alantur homines et literarum studia foveantur in summa ut virtuti praemia sint, internaeque egestatis habeatur ratio, ignavia exsulet, fraus occidat. Hoc videntes Bohemi per omnia nobiscum facient: nam ante, quod adversus avaros sacerdotes sibi consuluissent, prohibiti erant: facient et Graeci, qui cum ferre nec vellent nec possent Romanam tyrannidem, Romanorum pontificum instinctu pro schismaticis sunt habiti multo iam tempore; ac Rutheni erunt nostri, qui cum esse nuper vellent, repulsi a Sanctissimo sunt, iubente pendere sibi aureorum quotannis quater centena millia.

Etiam Turcae minus oderint, nec ulli ethnici calumniandi ut prius occasionem habebunt : hactenus enim eorum qui religioni praefuerunt, vitae turpitudo odibile apud alienos Christianum nomen reddidit . . . Ex Ebernburgo, tertia Idus Septembres.

XVIII

THE THREE TREATISES OF 1520

Thus,

On 12 Jan. 1519 Maximilian died, and on 27 June his grandson Charles V was elected Emperor, 1519–56. Charles was born at Ghent, 1500, and succeeded to a vast inheritance, which included the Netherlands and Burgundy, Spain, Austria, Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia, with the New World. He was thus a prince of German blood, who added unwonted resources to the imperial crown. He was also reputed to be favourable to reform. when, early in 1520 (de Wette, i. 421), Eck was in Rome busy with the proceedings that ended in the Bull of Excommunication, issued on 15 June, Luther addressed himself to 'the young and noble sovereign' by whom God has roused great hopes in many hearts', in a treatise of August 1520, entitled [No. 35] To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation respecting the Reformation of the Christian Estate. It was an appeal in German directed to the laity, urging them to take reform in hand for themselves, on the ground that, in virtue of their priesthood, spiritual authority rested with them. In October Luther sought to justify this position by a second treatise addressed in Latin to theologians, [No. 36] De Captivitate Babylonica Ecclesiae Praeludium (Opera Lat. v. 16 sqq.). In the seven sacraments with which the Church accompanied and controlled the life of the Christian from the cradle to the grave, he saw nothing but an attempt to bring it all under the power of the priest; there was nothing but a Captivity and Rome was the modern Babylon' (Kidd, Continental Reformation, 22). A third treatise [No. 37], Concerning Christian Liberty, was no polemic, but, in intention at least, an eirenicon, to be sent under a covering letter to Leo X, which, though of 13 Oct. or after (de Wette, i, 497), was antedated (by a last arrangement with Miltitz at Lichtenberg II Oct.) to 6 Sept., so as to seem to have been dispatched before the Bull of Excommunication was published in Saxony. All three treatises are translated in Wace and Buchheim, Luther's Primary Works, 157 sqq. (2nd ed., 1896), and are of the first importance for the study of the Lutheran theology.

No. 35. To the Christian Nobility of the
German Nation.

The Romanists have, with great adroitness, drawn three walls round themselves, with which they have hitherto protected themselves, so that no one could reform them, whereby all Christendom has fallen terribly.

First, if pressed by the temporal power, they have affirmed and maintained that the temporal power has no jurisdiction. over them, but, on the contrary, that the spiritual power is above the temporal.

Secondly, if it were proposed to admonish them with the Scriptures, they objected that no one may interpret the Scriptures but the Pope.

Thirdly, if they are threatened with a council, they pretend that no one may call a council but the Pope . . .

Now may God help us, and give us one of those trumpets that overthrew the walls of Jericho, so that we may blow down these walls of straw and paper, and that we may set free our Christian rods for the chastisement of sin, and expose the craft and deceit of the devil, so that we may amend ourselves by punishment and again obtain God's favour.

Let us, in the first place, attack the first wall.

It has been devised that the Pope, bishops, priests, and monks are called the spiritual estate; princes, lords, artificers, and peasants, are the temporal estate. This is an artful lie and hypocritical device, but let no one be made afraid by it, and that for this reason: that all Christians are truly of the spiritual estate, and there is no difference among them, save of office alone. As St. Paul says (1 Cor. xii), we are all one body, though each member does its own work, to serve the others. This is because we have one baptism, one Gospel, one faith, and are all Christians alike; for baptism, Gospel, and faith, these alone make spiritual and Christian people.

As for the unction by a pope or a bishop, tonsure, ordination, consecration, and clothes differing from those of laymen-all this may make a hypocrite or an anointed puppet, but never a Christian or a spiritual man. Thus we are all consecrated as priests by baptism, as St. Peter says: 'Ye are a royal priesthood, a holy nation (1 Pet. ii. 9); and in the book of Revelation and hast made us unto our God (by Thy blood) kings and priests' (Rev. v. 10). For, if we had not a higher